Frozen Heart
by Mirikizu
Summary: What started out as snowflake practice for Nat soon became an ice-capade worthy of a Disney movie. Her dad wasn't supposed to know about her powers, and now he's frozen solid! This "snippet" of time takes place many years after Elsa gains the throne.


Disclaimer: I do not hold any rights to Disney's Frozen. The snippet below was originally a response to this writing prompt: "Your dad is frozen. It's your fault. You're the only one who can fix it." Upon development, however, Frozen couldn't keep its grubby paws off my plot. So it's there, if you care to look for it. Otherwise, it's just a short, sweet escape for you. Enjoy!

Frozen Heart

"Aww, shit."

She could feel her father's eyes narrow, even if he didn't actually move. Her strict zealot of a father didn't allow cursing under his roof, though what he didn't know wouldn't send her to Hell. And speaking of sending her to Hell, she really did _not _intend for him to find out about her powers this way. She'd managed to keep them hidden for the past seventeen years, had managed to convince him they weren't hereditary. Why he'd walked in at just the wrong moment - she hadn't the foggiest. All she did know was that he was not at all thrilled to note his darling daughter was an ice-wielding monster.

"Sorry, Father!" Her faced flushed with embarrassment, she waved a hand at the ice. It began its slow and stately melting into a puddle at his feet.

"Natalia Astrid!" He roared, turning a peculiar shade of mottled scarlet himself. "Just what do you think you are doing?" The rest of his body was taking its sweet time to thaw, but his red-hot fury - well known to Nat by this point in her life - must have quickened the magically enhanced melting process around his face.

She froze, her attempt at escape thwarted momentarily. "Damnation," she muttered. Louder, she answered, "I was going to get a mop, Father." She kept her tone even and impersonal. _Maybe if I keep him calm, he'll forget he just got blasted? _

If his wildly thrashing head was any indication, she didn't think anything but a good bludgeoning would make him forget this latest blunder. It looked like he was trying to gesticulate, but the block that was his body hadn't yet thawed enough. Instead, he just raised the volume. "You dare bring this... this Devil's work under my roof? You dare-"

"Father, I really didn't mean to hit you with it! I was practicing control when you barged in here. You surprised me is all." But her words drowned in his onslaught. Curses flowed, intermingling with his nearly palpable rage until the flood of words was nothing more than that: dribble that flowed down his face as icemelt.

Nat gave up trying to stem the tide. At this point, he would either work himself into an apoplexy or pass out from hypothermia. Either way, she hoped one would happen before his hands melted. Although, now that he knew of her powers, his belt was no threat.

Feeling lighter than she had in years, she turned away from the twistedly comical scene, reaching into her closet for a coat and the full knapsack hidden under a pile of blankets. Calmly, ignoring the dawning confusion entering her father's voice, Natalia shoved passed the screaming mansicle into the hallway. By now deaf to his racket, she strode down the hall to her brother's door.

_Knock, knock, knock._ "Jens? I know you're in there," she called through the thick oak. "Are you coming?"

The door opened and her scruffy blonde twin poked his head out. "Sure, give me two shakes." He left the door ajar and skidded into his own closet.

He'd gotten taller, she realized. He was over six feet now. Goodness, he wouldn't stop growing! She hoped their new home had ten foot ceilings, if only for her sake. Ice pads, though they took precision, were a bore to conjure after the first five. Take it from the Princess of Ice Pad-ia, who provided them free of charge to her neighboring sibling, the Prince of Bruiseland.

She stifled a chuckle. She couldn't ruffle his hair anymore, either. At least not without a really tall ladder.

"Jens," she murmured when he emerged.

"What is it, Nat?" His own knapsack was almost as large as she.

"Don't forget Mother."

He smiled. "I wouldn't." Jens pulled a small framed canvas from the wall above his desk. An exquisite painting of a young blonde relaxing on a purple blanket with the forest bright with spring growth behind her, the artist had rendered her smile just right. And if you looked carefully along the edge of her coat, the blue-white edge looked more like frost than fringe. The portrait was commissioned just after her twenty-first birthday as a surprise gift to her sister, who had adored it - and her. Unlike the other images in the halls of formal, stiff-figured ancestors, their mother had wanted something more intimate, more personal. She would have a formal portrait painted later, when she married their father.

Their match wasn't for love - more for political expedience. Beset by suitors and warriors alike, their mother found the perfect solution: marriage, with an ironclad prenuptial agreement. Once they were wed, nothing save total annihilation of the entire kingdom could change it. And for eight years, they made the most of their lives.

"Let's go." The twins linked arms, their beloved mother's image between them, and fairly skipped outside, their father's emissions muffled by the slam of the grandiose double doors.

"Wait a moment," Natalia whispered, tugging on her brother's arm. They turned as one to face their childhood. The great palace sat upon a hill so tall their sleds had nearly flown atop the snow; the battlements above that they had filled with laughter now overflowed with shadowy, half-remembered toys. The halls had been so quiet for the past ten years, so somber. And there, just beyond the elegant drape of the garden wall, the family plot glistened with the warm rays of the setting sun. The shadows, five tiny shadows, leaned toward them, seeming to say goodbye even as they surrounded, comforted, protected the one large shadow edged with icy blue. This place, their home for so long, was his. But that was all, once she had gone. Just this building, this piece of land, no longer a seat of her power. He could do their people no more harm here. He could do his children no more harm here.

She reached out, though to the beloved shadows or her brother she to this day does not know. He grasped her hand, squeezing gently as if he, too, were struggling not to move, to run toward the plot. Instead, they stood silent, waiting. A moment, two passed as the ice crystals along the ground attracted no notice. They grew quickly, faster than any natural thing could, blossoming into the roots of a wall that raised itself before the twins' united hands. Inch by inch it flew steadily higher, thick and sturdy and magical.

Hands shaking, they drew strength from one another, putting everything they were into this barrier, this protective piece of themselves that was their mother's final gift.

"Where will you go?" Their father's hoarse voice came from the great double doors.

Natalia locked eyes with him involuntarily, the only part of him she could still see. "Away from you," came her whispered reply, unbidden. The wall swept up between them, and the spell was broken.

"Come, dearling." Jens tugged her away from their work. "It is done. We must away."

His twin nodded and followed, stumbling a little under the weight of her knapsack. "Yes, Jens, we must. Aunt Anna is expecting us."


End file.
